Blue Eyed Nate, Zynga Community Manager, was in Las Vegas for the day. He was here to finalize things for the
Mafia Wars Convention: Made which will take place on October 15th and 16th at the
Palms Casino Resort. I was able to sit down with Nate and find out more information about this event. If you plan on attending, please use the following link to sign up and you will get a special discount.
http://www.mafiawarsmade.eventbrite.com/?discount:LootLady
If you read the Zynga Forum Boards, this is what Blue Eyed Nate normally looks like.
You don't really learn a lo about him when you click on his
profile. He lives in Zynga and his occupation is Mafia Wars. When you click on his signature link, you are directed to your own Mafia Wars game.
This all changed today when the mysterious Blue Eyed Nate came to life. I met him at The Palms and right away I learned where his name came from. His eyes are really blue.
We walked around The Palms and checked out all the places that the various activities would take place. The main hub which will be called The Mafia Wars Lounge will be located in The Key West Room. Here is where you will sign in. There will be photo booths and places to play Mafia Wars. If you forget to bring your laptop, they will have places you can sign in and play. A Mafia Wars Merchandise Store will also be set up here.
Activities will take place throughout the casino. There will be some Vegas nightlife to enjoy at The Palms nightclub
Rain. Cover is included with paid admission.
And a pool party at the
Palms Pool. There will be a Mafia Wars Cabana. In Las Vegas, it's still warm enough for the pool in October.
The convention will wrap up with an Awards Ceremony at
The Pearl Theater.
After walking around The Palms, we headed over to my favorite Las Vegas diner,
The Peppermill so I could ask more questions about the event.
I just had to ask Nate why the event tickets cost so much? We are in a recession and not many have a lot of extra money laying around.
He explained that this is the first ever Mafia Wars convention and it is not the objective of Zynga to make a profit. The goal is to have as intimate of a convention as possible. The number of attendees will be limited to 1,000. The admission prices are to cover the expenses for the event. Nate estimates that 20-30 Zynga employees will attend and it costs a lot to reserve space at a casino like The Palms. If the convention is a success, Zynga plans on having more of them in other cities. These will be open to more players and the costs will be less. Zynga asked players to take a survey in early June (all of the questions can be found in my article
Mafia Wars Vegas Launch Party Survey ). Price was one of topics and there was enough interest for them to start planning.
SWAG
Other than having a great time, players will get some value for their admission price. Special loot items for attending and participating in the various activities will be added to players accounts and there will be SWAG Bags that will contain all kinds of good surprises. Zynga calls these Schwag Bags and I learned today that it's not just a Zynga term but a San Fransisco thing. Schwag is a slang term for bad weed, but in San Fransisco, it means SWAG (which stand for Stuff We All Get). There will also be some great give aways that may include Reward Points and Loyalty Points.
Community Panel Discussions
There will be panel discussion with representitives of the various communities. There will be several different panels so most likely you will find one that corresponds to what you are most interested in. The will be Top Developers (these guys are known as "Devs" in the Zynga world), Community Managers (to include Blue Eyed Nate, Jilly Bean and Victoria Was Here), Art Designers (to learn where all our loot comes from) and Programmers. You will get to talk face to face with all these people and ask all the questions you want answers to as well as make recommendations. Here is a partial list of some of the panels you can choose from.
- Bringing the Virtual to Reality--Meet an Ex-Mafia and an Ex-FBI Agent
- Executive Panel--The Masterminds of Mafia Wars
- Player vs. Player Design--Fighting the Good Fight!
- Gifting & Trading--Moving the Goods!
- New City Creation--Making a World from the Art Up!
- Security--Keeping You and Yours Safe!
- Systems--Looking Under the Hood?!?
- It's Vegas Baby!--Vegas Design.
Live Mission
This sounds like the most fun part of the whole event. There will a Live Mission based off the District 6 Job "Reveal A Politician's Dirty Secret".
(image from The Mafia Wars Wiki)
Players will work in teams of 8-12 people and they will find clues and solve puzzles to get to the end. Teams will earn points along the way and be judged by Zynga Representatives on performance and creativity. Time is a factor as well. The first team to complete the mission will get more points for doing so than the teams after them. When all teams are finished, the scores will be tallied and the winning team will be announced. Prizes of Loot items and Reward/Loyalty Points will be given to the winning team.
"The Objective of The Live Mission is to bring some fun of the game into reality."/Blue Eyed Nate, Zynga Community Manager
I came to the interview armed with an extensive list of questions from my friend
Bossy Don. These questions will all be addressed in future articles once I get more player feedback from the Community Panel Discussions. I did supply Nate with her questions and he has assured me that her now famous
Zynga Forum Board Post is in the process of being reviewed by multiple teams and will be addressed.
Overall I was impressed with Nate. He seems like the type of guy who loves life. He has a beautiful wife and two adorable daughters and says his job with Zynga is the best one he has ever had. I could tell he is very passionate about the Mafia Wars community. It was good for me to see that the entity we refer to as Zynga actually consists of real people doing the best that they can. The next Zynga irritates me, I will remember Nate before venting my frustrations. Don't worry, I'll still make fun of them every chance I get. Nate said no offense is taken and the people who work at Zynga understand that people need to vent. When we do so publicly, they learn from it and our complaints. He summed it up perfectly by saying "Zynga created the game Mafia Wars, the players built their own society." I hope to meet as many of you as possible in Las Vegas.
Definately interested in attending but can't this year. Glad to hear they are considering other cities. Sounds like a blast!
ReplyDeleteWill they have formal breaks every 8 hours for everyone to go get their toolbar bonus? :)
ReplyDeleteseeing as Jane's forum post was only 3 weeks ago I amazed Zynga have noticed it this soon. I would not expect any of the issues raised to be addressed this year. Zynga may call them "devs" we just call them all divs.
ReplyDeleteI think that this is all bull..Zynga shouldn't charge so much if they want "regular" people to attend. I think its again their poor attempt at getting more money, just like they do with the game.
ReplyDeletewow now your kissing zyngas ass...funny that but sad at same time..you blow
ReplyDeleteyou have let the mafia wars community down..zynga have drawn lines as us and them, we have seen with the blatent game faults ..updates ,opening of gift errors,the armory shambles,the market place glitch..then they expect us too keep buying..yet now you choose to promote them ,when you should have actually done something for the players,thanks for letting everyone down..you got stars in your eyes..you got conned...
ReplyDeleteGuys,the lootlady too her time to meet these people to inform us,working for us,read the vlog again,and you will learn she did ask questions Jane Bossy from top mafia info asked,working this way for us,the community
ReplyDeleteif you are again that form of work,tell them idea you get and not talk like Anarchist,saying she let us down no matter what the effort will be,i think she did VERY well,this is a lucky shot,as she got invited to meet them
im surprised,people get angry and hate zinga for what they are,and not for what they are becoming,these a huge diference there.i dont like many of the new updates they made (specialy the one changin the old game to a way they juge we sould play now etc) but still zynga try to meet people from the community and talk,learn and think of new idea if possible,those are considerable effort from past experience they did,and we cant bash on that (or we gonna turn trolls)
this is a good oportunity to learn,and see new things who are NOT a insider from zinga,yaa,i agree too expensive,but still ,this is last vegas,we cant expert this to be not expensive via free,but eventualy,if they realy want to meet more and more people,they will learn and change their way (a good exemple is the blowing armored truck,im sure if there is a next time,they will not redo the same mistake,at last,i hope so lol)
your guys stay Anonymous,but just saying she is kissing ass like,this,i want to know WHY your guys saying this,as i know of ,this is a informative vlog,making us learn there IS something going on,so there is no point trolling
PEACE!!!
In my personal opinion, I think this is a great article. The MW lootlady, is a Journalist, She is Like the Katie Couric or Diane Sawyer of Mafia Wars.
ReplyDeleteA journalist collects and disseminates information about current events, people, trends, and issues. Her work is acknowledged as journalism.
To Go Out of Her way, to track this event down and meet and follow up with an interview, of one of Zyngas Insiders, who was in Vegas a month prior to the event, finalizing the event schedule...
The only reason why she did this, was to get more info and bring it to the masses. That is what Journalists do. knock knock, Hello?
This is just another non-biased report. No one is for or against anyone. If anyone has any experience running a business, Could you imagine, for a moment, you opened your shop and millions of people raced in?
Zynga had an explosive start and got way to big to fast, that is what happens when you go for launch on social network sites. Yes, it did take them time to "CATCH UP" to demand, Now their customer service is excellent and game updates are more and more frequent across 26 games on 6 social networks. Is there errors in coding, of course there is! Everything is worked out, not all beta testing goes without fail, just ask Bill Gates, get a grip everyone, MW lootlady Does an awesome Job getting all of these great informative articles out to us. She does this because she loves it, its her passion, she does this for free, taking time out of her day to get these articles out to us.
You ROCK, Lady Mafia Informer! ;-)~
If loot lady/ bossy wants a job with zynga its a good way of getting in the pants of the right people. mark my words one if not two will kiss ass until they reach their goals, jobs at zynga.
ReplyDeletewho knows they could be moles already, telling zynga about glitches in the system, they are never the first to tell us about the glitches. informing zynga who's doing them.. etc
I REST MY CASE!!!!
I will be addressing these negative comments in a blog post. If I wanted a job with Zynga, I would just apply for one. I have no "stars in my eyes" and Mafia Wars would not be the venue I would choose if I did. I love the game Mafia Wars and I love putting information together. I teach people how to use scripts which is against Zynga's TOS so I would hardly say I'm kissing ass. Go through my articles about other people who play MW and it will look like I'm kissing their ass too. I focus on positive things about people when I write. Look for an upcoming post where I do the opposite. All of the "Anonymous" comments will be addressed and exposed for what they truly are. If you're going to bash me, have the balls to sign your comments. It's easy to do ---> ~MWLootLady, ~Jennifer see!
ReplyDeleteMWLootLady,
ReplyDeleteThank you for your time and the interview. Mafia Wars MADE Las Vegas is gearing up to be a fantastic event!
Hope to see you there!
(great article!)
definitely will attend it when i get hold of free stuff below (including but not limited to):
ReplyDelete1. return ticket sg - LV - sg
2. somewhere i can sleep, rest, etc after clicking mouses like no other tomorrows!
3. something to eat. choc also part of the meals
.... what else? yeah i'm a fanatic mw and has been playing like a madsheep but looks like mw (zynga) only focusing more on US players and not other countries, judging from the promotions, cards, freebies, etc that only available for US players.
R3d Ang3L
Jennifer - Ignore the negative comment left by "anonymous" bums who are yet to grow a pair - they're simply trolling since they have no better work than to step into such forums and troll people. For them, they'd always want to have stuff spoon-fed to them for free since they neither have the intelligence nor the balls to work and live a dignified life, much less be of useful help to others.
ReplyDeleteYour work (as also Bossy Don's) is hugely appreciated by a majority of the MafiaWars community who look up to you folks as the "voice of the workforce" - forever in hope that good feedback will actually reach the ears of Z!.
Please keep up the good work. Don't let trolls run you down.
A sincere fan! :)